Review: Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley

From the Back Cover:

Senior year is over, and Lucy has the perfect way to celebrate: tonight, she's going to find Shadow, the mysterious graffiti artist whose work appears all over the city. He's out there somewhere—spraying color, spraying birds and blue sky on the night—and Lucy knows a guy who paints like Shadow is someone she could fall for. Really fall for. Instead, Lucy's stuck at a party with Ed, the guy she's managed to avoid since the most awkward date of her life. But when Ed tells her he knows where to find Shadow, they're suddenly on an all-night search around the city. And what Lucy can't see is the one thing that's right before her eyes.

My Thoughts:

Oh, how I loved this book! Just beautiful. I was completely absorbed in this one-night journey of self-discovery, art, and redeeming love.

Lucy's high school days are officially over and she wants to do something wild and crazy. She wants to find Shadow, the elusive graffiti artist whose paintings speak to Lucy's soul. She wants an adventure. She wants to escape her strained home life. She wants to find someone who understands. She wants to find a direction for her future. She ends up finding everything she's looking for, but it's nothing like what she expected, and more than she ever could have imagined.

Ed's in trouble. His life's been on a downhill spiral. Kicked out of school and grieving the loss of his mentor, his only solace is his art, but that doesn't pay the bills. And he and his buddy Leo have gotten involved with the wrong crowd. He's facing a crossroads, desperately looking for a reason to do the right thing when doing the wrong thing seems so easy and is so tempting. When he runs into the girl of his secret dreams, Lucy, and discovers she's looking for Shadow, he takes a chance and offers to help her find him.

As Lucy and Ed traverse a nameless Australian city, stopping to admire Shadow's masterpieces while they search for him, the story alternates between their points of view, with some of Leo's poetry interspersed, and a coming-of-age story unfolds over the course of a magical night where two lost and lonely young souls make a real connection that sets both of them on a new course. Fantastic characters, gorgeous prose, riveting story . . . my heart broke for both of these kids, but at the same time their story was so uplifting and full of promise. Totally real, fresh, evocative, meaningful, touching, unbearably sad, incredibly hopeful, and supremely satisfying -- it totally swept me away. I had no idea what I was in for when I first picked it up. I laughed, I cried, I loved it. I really can't do this book justice. Just go read it! Young adult fiction does not get better than this.

My Rating:  5 Stars out of 5

*Please Note: This review references an advance digital copy received from the publisher via NetGalley, and therefore the final published copy may differ. Though I received this book from the publisher, these are my honest and unbiased thoughts, and I was not compensated in any other way for reviewing this book.